LAGOS State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, MPP&UD, is charged with the vision of Lagos as a sustainable smart city of choice and the mission of making the state attractive to business through community regeneration and inclusive physical planning.
Recently, the Lagos was ranked as the 19th best city to live in the world due to infrastructural provisions.
However, this has come with its attending challenges as many lives and properties have been lost over the years in various collapsed buildings across the state. Dr. Oluyinka Olumide, the Commissioner, MPP&UD, born in Lagos to the aboriginal Bajulaiye chieftaincy family of Lagos Island, is an erudite personality who was educated at notable institutions including the Holy Cross Primary, Lagos, Methodist High School, Ibadan, Yaba College of Technology, University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and University of Lagos.
He was appointed by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in August 2023 as the Commissioner for MPP&UD. Olumide rarely grants interviews, devoting most of his time to field work. But he chose to take time out of his busy schedule to speak with Olasunkanmi Akoni, our Assistant-News Editor, on sundry issues including the spate of building collapse in Lagos, building regulations, the proposed 4th Mainland Bridge and the Magodo land tussle, among others. Excerpts:
*Measures to curb buildings collapse*
Buildings collapse can be experienced from two angles; one, are dilapidated buildings due to aging or due to disturbance in sub soil structure or abnormal change of use? The second form of building collapse is when you have buildings being developed under construction, probably almost getting to the finishing stage.
It’s been a challenge world over and particularly in Lagos. In the past it’s been fairly frequent but not out of order and if I take the first one which is old, dilapidated buildings, what happens is that there are some areas; normally each building should have a life span of 40 or over 50 years. It’s just like human beings. We are born and we grow and, after some time, we die.
Samething applies to buildings, they get old. It depends on how people respond to it so it doesn’t lead to collapse. Buildings that are not properly built would start showing signs of distress from 40, to 50 years. But buildings that are properly designed and well-constructed may last beyond 120 to 150 years. Part of building disintegrating is not an unusual thing but the onus lies on the professionals to be able to identify all those things and mete-out responsive actions.
Recently, in Ebute-Metta, we had cases of collapse of old buildings as a result of the reaction from soil structures. Those areas used to be water-logged and people moved in there by way of reclamation, sand-filling and build. In doing that, you are telling the soil to change form to plastic nature and when you do that, it has its life span, as well as consequences. You know it’s like you are standing on a plastic bucket and when you stand on a plastic bucket it may take your weight but, over time, with the effect of heat and cold, rain, expansion and contraction, the elasticity of that material tends to be affected. The soil will now cave-in. An example of such areas is Ebute Metta. The buildings are under the threat of collapse because of the soil structure making them prone to collapse.
The other leg is buildings under construction collapsing which ideally shouldn’t be because they are to be designed, constructed and supervised by certified professionals. The professionals are the ones to ensure everything is put in place. A proper assessment of the soil must have been done because, normally, you check the strength of the soil to ensure that the load put on it does not exceed the strength it can carry. There are different types of foundation that can be deployed depending on the strength of the soil. However, another factor is compromise. You have that basically when you don’t have certified professionals. For example, at least up till now, it has not been proven, but you have professionals who will go out of order. What I am trying to say is that you have a situation whereby the size of the foundation is determined, for example, 3 meters by 3 meters and somebody on site deliberately or otherwise reduces it to 2 by 2 meters.
Of course this will have consequence. Or the size of specified reinforcement not followed, the size of grain of concrete is not followed, these are the causes of building collapsing. Another is workmanship. Building is a sequence and must go along that line. When you have a plan, structures are formed from wet to solid, you have reinforcement in position, cage, mixed cement including water in proper aggregate, fine sand and coarse granite, all these are mixed together proportionately as designed and specified, but if not done properly, it can lead to building collapsing. If the developer is in a rush and not keeping to the specified time, of course you have collapsed because it will be subjected to heavy stress. But right now in Lagos MPP&UD, we have separated building planning from development control.
First thing is to access the building and check all details are in order which goes under Lagos State Planning Permit. The other stage is the building control where you have the approval and ready to start work on site in which case our men will visit at every stage, that’s what we call staging to ensure compliance with design, we now start with concreting, we check that. Also, do the German floor and now the upper structures, at every stage our men are involved to certify and samples of those concretes are taken to lab for test to ensure compliance to standard. These holistic innovations have gone a long way in reducing the spate of building collapse in Lagos.
Manpower constraints
Yeah, we have the constraints. However, in this ministry, we work almost 24 hours, seven days a week to be able to meet all our challenges. There is shortage of manpower because the whole staff of LABSCA is about 100, and to cover the whole state, it might not be possible. So, what we are trying to do is to leverage on upright professionals to bring them in as assistants under a programme called, CAP, Certified Accredited Programme, These are professionals from their various fields They assist us, assign building sites to them for staging. They will also report back to Lagos State Building Control Agency, LABSCA. These are some of the measures in place to curb spate of building collapse. There is another major one which is when you have a design for certain number of floors. Maybe, you applied for a design of six floors storey building for business venture with intent to sell, there is always the temptation to include additional floors this is extremely very bad because that foundation might have been designed for six floors. So for you to take it to nine floors is completely out of order. However, a lot of engagements are on-going with stakeholders to let them know the inherent dangers and desist from the act. Also some developers use any form of water during construction.
They are supposed to use potable water. A lot of developers make this mistake; they just get to site, dig well and start using the water. This is unacceptable and risky because it will react and shorten the lifespan of the reinforcement. So, water for building construction should be drinkable water and not well or sea water. I want to appeal to property owners to engage correct professionals. Ideally, in every construction site, the amount you pay as consultancy fee is about eight to 12 per cent of total cost. This is meager percentage for anyone to cut corners. Perhaps, if you must control the cost of building, which is basically the problem, the carcass, that’s the structure of a building, is about 60 per cent of the total cost and, unfortunately, these are basic things that you just can’t cut corners. If it’s a design for 16mm rod, you can’t use 12mm. But when you get to the finishing stage, that’s when you have the options to play with in terms of cost reduction such as in tiles, doors, paints, and others. The choice is yours, but regarding structures, you have no choice.
Requirements for building approval
For building approval, it all depends on the status of that development. Now, for the purpose of this discussion, let us just assume the regular one, which is a block of four flats in a standard plot of land, which is 18 x 3648 square meters. That is a standard plot. And people build four blocks of flat, two down, two up, my advice to you if you are purchasing any property is to approach the ministry through any of the district offices to inquire about the status of that land, whether that land is possible for you to do that development there. Because there are some land that are under acquisition.
Those ones you cannot get approval. So, they should take their time to approach the district office to find out the status of the land. So, let’s assume that all that is done, that you have a survey cleared, you approach the district office before you even design, before you get your architect, also approach the district office to find out about the development information, planning information, whether that place is zoned for residential or whether the particular use is going to be suitable. Because if you have a land that falls under acquisition, for example, you can’t get approval for a residential building.
